page_title: Wedding dress of Meghan Markle
section_title: Veil
hierarchical_section_title: Wedding dress of Meghan Markle / Dress display / Veil
context_page_description: The wedding dress worn by Meghan Markle at her wedding to Prince Harry on 19 May 2018 was designed by the British fashion designer Clare Waight Keller, artistic director of the fashion house Givenchy. The bride's veil was embroidered with flowers representing the countries of the Commonwealth, the California poppy, in honour of Meghan Markle's home state of California, and wintersweet, a flower that grows at Kensington Palace.
context_section_description: The dress is augmented by a long 5 metre (16-ft) veil, hand-embroidered with a variety of flowers on its hem, and symbolic sprays of wheat. It was 3 metres wide. The veil took longer to create than the dress itself, and the embroiderers spent 500 hours on completing it, washing their hands every 30 minutes to make sure that the veil would remain immaculate until the wedding day. Markle chose two favourite flowers – wintersweet (Chimonanthus praecox), which grows outside Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace, where she and Harry lived, and the California poppy (Eschscholzia californica), from where she was born – along with individual flowers representing the 53 countries of the Commonwealth, reflecting the couple's interest in the work of the Commonwealth. The countries and flowers are:
  Antigua and Barbuda – agave (Agave karatto)
  Australia – golden wattles (Acacia pycnantha)
  Bahamas – yellow elder (Tecoma stans)
  Bangladesh – sada shapla or white water lily (white form of Nymphaea nouchali)
  Barbados – the pride of Barbados (Caesalpinia pulcherrima)
  Belize – the black orchid (Prosthechea cochleata)
  Botswana – ear of Sorghum and cat's claw (Uncaria tomentosa)
  Brunei Darussalam – simpor (Dillenia suffruticosa)
  Cameroon – red stinkwood (Prunus africana)
  Canada – bunchberry (Cornus canadensis)
  Cyprus – Cyclamen cyprium
  Dominica – carib wood (Poitea carinalis)
  Fiji – tagimaucia (Medinilla waterhousei)
  Gambia – white variety orchid
  Ghana – caladium (Caladium)
  Grenada – bougainvillea (Nyctaginaceae)
  Guyana – Queen Victoria water lily (Victoria amazonica)
  India – Indian lotus (Nelumbo nucifera)
  Jamaica – lignum vitae (Guaiacum officinale)
  Kenya – the tropical orchid
  Kiribati – Bidens kiribatiensis
  Lesotho – spiral aloe (Aloe polyphylla)
  Malawi – lotus (Nymphaea lotus)
  Malaysia – bunga raya or tropical hibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis)
  Malta – Maltese centaury (Cheirolophus crassifolius)
  Mauritius – Trochetia boutoniana
  Mozambique – maroon bell bean (Markhamia zanzibarica)
  Namibia – welwitschia (Welwitschia mirabilis)
  Nauru – Calophyllum
  New Zealand – kowhai (Sophora microphylla)
  Nigeria – yellow trumpet (Costus spectabilis)
  Pakistan – jasmine (Jasminum officinale)
  Papua New Guinea – Sepik blue orchid (Dendrobium lasianthera)
  Rwanda – torch lily (Kniphofia uvaria)
  Saint Lucia – the rose and the marguerite
  Samoa – teuila (Alpinia purpurata)
  Seychelles – tropicbird orchid (Angraecum eburneum)
  Sierra Leone – scadoxus (Scadoxus cinnabarinus)
  Singapore – Vanda 'Miss Joaquim'
  Solomon Islands – hibiscus (Hibiscus)
  South Africa – protea (Protea cynaroides)
  Sri Lanka – blue water lily (pale blue form of Nymphaea nouchali)
  St Kitts and Nevis – poinciana (Delonix regia)
  St Vincent & the Grenadines – Soufriere tree (Spachea perforata)
  Swaziland – fire heath (Erica cerinthoides)
  Tonga – heilala (Garcinia sessilis)
  Trinidad & Tobago – chaconia (Warszewiczia coccinea)
  Tuvalu – plumeria (Plumeria rubra)
  Uganda – desert rose (Adenium obesum)
  United Kingdom
  England – rose (Rosa)
  Northern Ireland – flax (Linum usitatissimum)
  Scotland – thistle (Cirsium vulgare)
  Wales – daffodil (Narcissus)
  United Republic of Tanzania – African violet (Saintpaulia)
  Vanuatu – anthurium (Anthurium)
  Zambia – bougainvillea (Bougainvillea)
caption: Warszewiczia coccinea (Trinidad & Tobago)
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